WHEN SAN RAFAEL Mayor Gary Phillips took office in 2011, one of his top goals was coming up with an action plan for addressing his city's longstanding homeless problem.

He established a special city committee, reached out to stakeholders and began a search for possible solutions.

San Rafael's quandary over the homeless and vagrancy has been going on for years, at least since the early 1980s, when the city tried to close down the downtown free dining hall, assuming it was the magnet drawing the homeless to city streets.

On a 3-2 vote, the council reversed course and decided not to pursue closing the dining hall.

But over the years, efforts to provide downtown services to the homeless have met with political resistance, much of it from downtown merchants.

Phillips committed the city to take action to address problems and to respond to merchants' and shoppers' complaints.

His leadership helped build an important coalition involving the county, Kaiser Permanente and Marin General hospitals and the Marin Community Foundation, stakeholders in dealing with the costs and challenges of Marin's homeless population.

Their participation helped create funding needed to deploy a Downtown Streets Team and, possibly, pay for more beds at the Helen Vine detox center, where people too inebriated to gain admission into shelters can stay instead of jail or the hospital — two costly and oft-used options.

An overnight stay in the county jail costs taxpayers $170. The cost for a hospital emergency room bed is far more expensive.

The 2008-09 Marin County Civil Grand Jury, in its report on Marin's homeless problem, said it would be "naive" to think local services could remove homelessness from Marin's streets and open spaces. But, it stressed, services could help reduce the problem "to a tolerable level."

That is one of the goals of the Downtown Streets Team, an agency that has had success in Palo Alto. It started in on San Rafael's downtown last week, beginning its outreach to the homeless and offering some of them part-time jobs, such as picking up litter. The hope is that opportunity and the chance to become dependable workers will be the first rung in a climb out of homelessness.

Phillips also has visited other cities to take a look at their programs. The committee's work is just beginning, but the streets teams' local launch is an important step in a solutions-oriented initiative.

Phillips, other city leaders and the coalition of stakeholders deserve credit for coming up with a plan of action beyond deploying more police officers to downtown spots where the homeless congregate.

Phillips is looking for solutions that could help reduce numbers. It is an initiative that should provide a helping hand for the homeless and benefit business downtown.